Gadgets Control

Pandora, the ad-supported internet radio service that builds stations off of your personal taste, may be shutting down in the near future.  Due to high royalty costs from the labels, that may be their only option.  According to the Washington Post, Pandora founder Tim Westergren doesn’t seem too confident the company will survive. “We’re approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision…This is like a last stand for webcasting.” The Post mentioned that a whopping 70% of Pandora’s $25 Million in revenue this year will go to royalty fees.  Representative Howard L. (Read the full post about ‘Pandora hit with soaring royalty fees; Is shutting down their only option?’…)

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PricePirates is a piece of Windows freeware that lets you compare prices in eBay auctions ( you can select what country), Amazon.com and Shopping.com. Each of those product sources show up in different tabs in the software and automatically populated once you switch to a tab. There is also a tab with a Web search (although I don’t know why you would bother with this when there are much better search engines out there).

I found that the results were a bit hit or miss on the Amazon.com and Shopping.com tabs, although eBay results looked fine. For example, a search for ‘ipod touch 8gb‘ did not return the actual ipod listed on Amazon.

(Read the full post about ‘Review: PricePirates price comparison software’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Aug 17th 2008 at 9:20AMJust over a year ago, we passed off a far-out proposal that would turn highways into wind farms. Now, however, the state of Oregon is proving that such feats are actually within reach as it breaks ground on the first so-called “solar highway” demonstration project. The project will be installed at the Interstate 5 and Interstate 205 interchange in Tualatin, where it will cover around 8,000 square feet and produce 112,000 kilowatt hours per year. (Read the full post about ‘Oregon begins building first “solar highway” project’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Aug 17th 2008 at 5:46AMAMD’s going through some rough times, no doubt about it, but for fanboys of the CPU maker (wait, do CPU fanboys still exist?) here’s your feel-good story of the year. The always-thorough Tom’s Hardware has pit Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom 230 processor against AMD’s Athlon 64 2000+, and the results just might surprise you. The 1GHz Athlon (with a core voltage of 0.90 volts and a power draw of just 8 watts) managed to best the aforementioned Atom in both energy consumption and processing power tests. The gurus at Tom’s credited the more modern 790G platform and the highly efficient K8 architecture as big players in the Athlon’s strong showing, finally deeming said chip “more economical, faster and quieter” than the Atom. (Read the full post about ‘Athlon 64 2000+ at 8-watts outperforms, draws less energy than Atom’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Aug 17th 2008 at 5:46AMAMD’s going through some rough times, no doubt about it, but for fanboys of the CPU maker (wait, do CPU fanboys still exist?) here’s your feel-good story of the year. The always-thorough Tom’s Hardware has pit Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom 230 processor against AMD’s Athlon 64 2000+, and the results just might surprise you. The 1GHz Athlon (with a core voltage of 0.90 volts and a power draw of just 8 watts) managed to best the aforementioned Atom in both energy consumption and processing power tests. The gurus at Tom’s credited the more modern 790G platform and the highly efficient K8 architecture as big players in the Athlon’s strong showing, finally deeming said chip “more economical, faster and quieter” than the Atom. (Read the full post about ‘Athlon 64 2000+ at 8-watts outperforms, draws less energy than Atom’…)

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No need to scour the interwebs for hot gaming news, Gamertell‘s already done that for you!  Here’s a look at this week’s top stories… Super rare Dark Knight Xbox 360 console will cost you plentyHacker creates prototype of PSP PhoneWii-esque budget game system V-sports hits Japanplaystation 3 transformed into laptop by PirateModder hacks PSP, adds touchscreen Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! (Read the full post about ‘Hot gaming news for the week of 8-10-2008′…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Aug 17th 2008 at 1:39AMIndilinx just recently caught eyes with its Barefoot solid state drive controller, which has reportedly shown a read speed of 230MB/sec. Merely days later, it’s already talking about the next best thing. Said firm, along with Mosaid, is preparing for a third-generation of the controller for the SATA 3 interface, which will provide a mind-boggling 600MB/sec. (Read the full post about ‘Indilinx and Mosaid aim to squeeze 600MB/s out of SSDs’…)

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by Paul Miller, posted Aug 16th 2008 at 10:50PM What could possibly provide us more joy and mirth than a Segway? How about a Segway-inspired bot that fails spectacularly on a consistent basis? The tech in play here is quite simple, and the fact it can stand as long as it does being that top heavy is actually pretty surprising. The best news? Hit the read link for a guide to making your very own fail bot at home. (Read the full post about ‘Miniature “balancing” robot is sad, hilarious’…)

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by Paul Miller, posted Aug 16th 2008 at 8:24PM We’ve seen some decent video alteration in our day, but this new research project by some folks at the University of Washington has the potential to turn the entire concept on its head. Using some rather advanced algorithms to analyze video and photographs of a the same scene, the software can meld the two into something slightly better or even dramatically different. In effect, it’s Photoshop for video, since it brings your Photoshop chops to bear on video effects: edit up a still shot or two of the scene, and then meld that with the video, and your edits can be seamlessly integrated into the scene, without all that nasty manual labor required by Shake or After Effects. (Read the full post about ‘Video tech uses photos to enhance, alter shots: it’s the Photoshop of video, and no one is safe’…)

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Have you ever had a burger that tasted good enough to… walk on? My guess is that even if it did taste like something you wouldn’t mind putting your feet in, the burger’s design doesn’t exactly call for an edible walking solution. But this design, on the other hand, might just be optimal for running track, and then grabbing a quick snack after your exercise just by chewing on your shoe. The Nike (Burger) Air Max 90, commissioned by Nike for design by Ole Hemmendorff and 7 other creative minds, is a shoe which might prove to be the tastiest footwear ever created. Hemmendorff claims that the shoe is designed with hamburger because the meat is “the most powerful, must durable and most delicious material known to man.” Now that’s a man who loves his beef. (Read the full post about ‘The Nike Burger chomps down on juicy athletics’…)

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